For the fifth year running, over the Martin Luther King holiday (Jan
17-19, 1998), a group of 5 4x4's, led by our fearless leader Terry Johnson, met in
Ridgecrest, CA. early on the morning of January, 17, 1998 in
preparation for two days of off-road adventure in Panamint and Death
Valleys. The group consisted of:

James Fisher from Fremont, CA driving a '93 Bronco, 33x12.50 M/Ts, open

And my '85 4Runner, 33x9.50 BFG M/Ts, locked F/R

I
had arrived about midnight and decided to head out to the Trona
Pinnacles National Historical Landmark, about 25 minutes northeast of
Ridgecrest. I was surprised to find a large trailer and lots of
equipment at the main parking area. The caretaker, a local gun shop
owner, informed me that they had just wrapped up location filming at
the Pinnacles for an upcoming dinosaur movie (tentatively titled "The
Trouble with Dinosaurs") which should be released in 1999.
They were packing up to move first to Poison Canyon (which is between
the Pinnacles and Ridgecrest) and then to the Arizona desert to finish
the location shots. Post production would add in the computer-generated
dinosaurs and live actors. Evidently, this area is heavily used by
Hollywood for location shots. Anyway, I got to see the sunrise before I
had to leave. Next time, I'm going to spend more time here. There are
countless dirt roads winding through nearly ten miles of the tufa
formations and it looks quite interesting.

After a quick drive back to Ridgecrest, the group formed up and
headed north through Trona, a town right out of the B-movies of the
50's. Looks like the abandoned town being attacked by space aliens.

Then
we crested the pass and dropped into Panamint Valley. The "town"
of Ballarat is in the distance.

After
leaving the pavement and crossing the valley floor, here is the General
Store, now run by Louie, after the recent departure of Don. We stocked
up on the essentials, T-shirts, maps, etc.

After airing down to 25 PSI, we then headed up Indian Ranch Road for
a few miles before turning up Surprise Canyon (at the large white
rock), where we drove up to the first winch waterfall. There were a few
interesting spots on the road after it dropped into the creek bed. The
water was running pretty good, leaving a slick mossy coating on the
smooth rocks.

HINT: When driving in a canyon and the road forks, you'll generally
want to take the lower fork if you intend to stay in the canyon.
Surprise was no exception, you reach a fork halfway up the canyon. The
upper one looks to be maintained, while the lower one is not much more
than tire tracks. The upper road leads to the old Chris Wicht camp and
is less than amiable residents (as evidenced by their rock art (below)
and propensity to blockade the canyon road).

A
small waterfall, required a bit of guiding for the non-locked rigs.

The
full-sized Bronco managed to find rocks on the side of the trail, one
of which had a bite of James' step and bumper.

There
is a small mine/homestead near the waterfalls and the locals are not
too pleased with their 4-wheeling neighbors as evidenced by their
graffiti.

The
first waterfall was awesome, especially when you think of trucks
winching up and down it and considering it would be rated a Class
3 climbing route in Yosemite. We walked up the first three falls,
enjoying the scenery. The ghost town of Panamint City is between 5-6
miles further upstream, past 4 more waterfalls.

After turning around in the narrow canyon (an adventure in its own
right), I lead the way back down the canyon. When we reached the little
waterfall, I went right down the dropoff I had climbed on the way in.
The wheels lost traction about a foot from the bottom and I ended up
bouncing the rear end a bit, testing the outer corners of my rear
bumper on a few of the rocks lining the falls. We guided Don around the
drop.

Tim
went down the drop. His left front went down first, offering this
fantastic photo-op. James and Terry took the outside route.

Once clear of the canyon. we headed back to Ballarat. then south
along a fairly good macadam road to the Briggs Gold
mine. After the mine the road turned to washboard for the next 10
miles.

At
15.3 miles from Ballarat, is the left turn into Goler Wash. After the
canyon narrows, there are a few challenging spots. Don couldn't quite
make this ledge in 2WD. Dropping into 4-Hi did the trick. Here's a QuickTime clip of the climb (300
k)

At
the top of the canyon, we made a sharp left turn just after passing the
DVNP boundary sign, passed through a dense stand of trees and arrived
at the infamous Barker Ranch, one-time hideout of Charles Manson. We
stopped for lunch and enjoyed the scenery. Pictured above are the front
gate, the main ranch house and one of the out buildings. In case you
are wondering about the colors above, I did take a few liberties with
the color saturation during post processing. I found that the bright
desert sun caused the colors on the video to be washed out. I like the
affect, it adds to the surrealistic quality of the ranch.

Continuing
eastward, we crested Mengel Pass, dropped into Butte Valley and its
abandoned cabins followed by Warm Springs Valley and its abandoned
mines, finally reaching the West Side road in Death Valley itself just
after sunset.

A mad dash north in the dark past Badwater and Furnace Creek, led us
to our overnight stop in Beatty, NV. Copious quantities of cheap food
were consumed before retiring for a good nights sleep. Rumor has it
that a few souls braved the casino and may have even come out ahead!

Sunday morning dawned clear and cold. I disconnected my sway bar
which I had neglected to do the day before. After a hearty breakfast
("Could we get some more coffee?") we gassed up and
retraced out route back to the Titus Canyon turnoff. About 15 miles of
whoop-dee-doos and washboard later, we entered Titanothere Canyon,
where Terry stopped to check out some noise in his front suspension. It
turned out the top nut had come off his shock, leaving it to rattle
around. I pulled the second steering stabilizer off my rig and the nut,
cup washer and rubber bushing fit his Rancho shock perfectly.

Over
a narrow pass, we (along with our jaws) dropped into upper Titus Canyon
with its brightly colored rock.

Shortly
thereafter, we came to the site of the Leadfield ghost town, then some
india petroglyphs and Klare Spring. It is this spring that attracts the
big horn sheep in the summer months that prompts the closing of Titus
Canyon from May-Oct.

Soon
we entered the lower canyon and the high narrow walls were
breathtaking. You would see signs of dried mud 30-40 feet up the sheer
walls where flash floods left it. Wouldn't want to be in there when a
thunderstorm hit!

At
the exit to the canyon, the group split up. Don and James turned north
to visit Scotty's Castle, Ubehebe Crater and if time permitted, the
Racetrack. I assume they made it back or else Don's computer is sending
out e-mail on it own!

Terry, Tim, Bob, and I turned south towards Furnace Creek and Echo
Canyon, beyond. Under the clear sunny skies, temperatures were in the
upper 70's. On the paved road, Tim's 22R lost a cylinder and we pulled
over. Bob noticed a sparkplug wire had fallen over on the the exhaust
manifold and was shorting out. A bit of electrician's tape and it
seemed to run better. A few miles up Echo Canyon and the smell of
burning plastic signaled the end of the repair. I dug a zip-tie out of
my parts box and a more permanent fix was done. The Echo Canyon road
shows no sign of grading, it looks just like someone just drove off
over the desert.

At the top of the canyon, we came upon the waterfall obstacle. It
looked to be a 45° 8' high rock ledge, with a sharp turn to the
left follwed by a second ledge and sharp turn to the right. It looked
worse than it actually was, although Terry and I managed to find some
nasty bumps to the left side. Looking at the video, I seem to have come
in too tight on the first ledge, which put me too far to the left for
the second turn. It looks like my left front pulled a large flat rock
back, effectively launching me towards the canyon wall. This obstacle
definitely requires either 4WD (maybe 2WD with rear locker) and some
decent ground clearance. Long wheelbase and full-size vehicles must
have fun here!

After
a brief lunch break, we continued down the other side, past an
off-camber section, and one rather tight spot, at least for a full-size
rig. For the narrow Toyotas, this quite spacious, but a full-sized
truck may need some spotting through here.

There
are lots of side roads, and somehow Terry managed to keep us on the
right ones and around dark, we emerged on the highway south of Beatty.
After gassing up, Terry headed for Lone Pine to meet up with Don and
James, while Tim, Bob and I made a bee-line for Bakersfield.

NOTES:

The background for this page is an image of Zabriske Point. I
post-processed the image with Silicon
Graphics Image Vision toolkit by running a Sobel Edge Detection
filter on it, then rotated and cropped the image slightly to get the
edges to tile properly.